Reject Me Once, Regret Me Forever

Chapter 9 — The Scar and the Altar

**POV: Aria Silverfang**

The wound was healed in the camp.

Kael bound the cut on my leg with his own linen, neater than I would have. When his fingers brushed my calf, the scar beneath my collarbone jumped again—not pain, but the mark left by my rejection, recognizing its master. A wolf that had found its mate would never loosen its hold. He probably didn't even notice he'd gone gentle with his touch, as if afraid to break something.

"Don't go," he said suddenly.

I didn't answer. He looked up, brow knit, like a man turning over something he could not puzzle out.

"In the forest," he said. "Why did you reject me?"

My heart missed half a beat. The scar under my collarbone flared—not with pain, but with something traitorous, a warmth that said *yes, this is him* before I could silence it. He asked it honestly—not an accusation, but confusion. Like someone who remembered the pain but not how he'd come by it. I pressed my lips together until they hurt, refusing to let a single word past them.

"What did I do wrong?" he pressed.

I almost laughed. What did he do wrong? In the life before, he left me to freeze in the dungeon, never once sparing me a glance. In this life, he knew nothing of it, only pressed me for what he had done wrong. The debt rode his back, yet the debtor had forgotten he owed it.

I didn't answer. I only looked away, so he wouldn't see the cold at the bottom of my eyes.

I stayed in the camp a few days under the pretense of healing. His tent was small, everything in its place, letters weighed down in the corner of his desk. On the third day he took men to patrol beyond the village, and I was alone.

I lifted the stack of letters.

On top, the Silverfang wax seal. My father's hand—cold, businesslike. The marriage would proceed as planned; no room for error. A treaty pressed down by the clan alliance, no appeal.

I read those lines and knew. The bride of the alliance had been me—Silverfang's second daughter, sent and then fled. Now I was at the border, hidden behind a healer's shell; to fill that empty seat, the family could send only the eldest, Seraphine.

My sister. The one who had wept as she pushed me out to take her place, then slipped free herself—now pushed back by the family, into my seat. She masked the scent of Lucian on her skin with perfume, thinking she could hide it. She didn't know the one receiving her was the very Alpha I had rejected.

I pressed the letter back as I'd found it. She was walking into her own trap. Why would I stop her?

When Kael returned, his face was darker than when he'd left. He said nothing of the letter, but I knew he'd read it. He knew only that "a daughter of Silverfang" was coming—not that the daughter was the healer bandaging him this very moment.

He stood at the tent flap, watching me a while, then a restlessness came over him—not at me, but at the marriage being forced onto his head.

"The clan wants me at the altar," he said, voice low. "But my wolf knows only you."

I looked up. He meant it. The bond in my chest pulled, hard and without my permission, as if it would drag me the half-step toward him it had been denied. A wolf that had found its mate would give its mark to no one but the fated. At that rite, he would not mark Seraphine. He was only waiting for the one before him—me—to turn back.

"Another," he added. "I won't touch another."

I said nothing. That c***k in my chest opened a little wider at his words.

My sister was being sent to marry. Not me—her.

I made a decision.

As the "healer," I would go with them to the wedding at Thornheart. The best seat in any house is the audience's. I would stand below the dais and watch Seraphine step into the robe she'd fought to steal, step by step, into the pit she'd dug herself.

In the traveling party I was a healer who kept her eyes down. The night before Thornheart, Seraphine sent for me—the soon-to-be Luna had an old mark at her throat she wanted hidden before the rite. She did not recognize me, took me for some spare herbalist.

I mixed her a jar of salve. That mark at her throat was Lucian's, pressed down by heavy perfume day to day. Into the salve I stirred moonwort—harmless on its own, but beneath the Moon Goddess's witness at the imprint rite, it would draw the suppressed scent of the mark out completely.

She took the jar, pleased as if she'd gotten a prize. She did not know I had mixed it myself—the mark on her throat would give itself away at the wedding.

Before first light I packed. Only a small vial of scent-masking water—enough to melt into any crowd, unseen by any wolf's nose.

For this play, I'd take the front row.